


Across the Wall

by mmcgui12_gmu



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Stardust (2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmcgui12_gmu/pseuds/mmcgui12_gmu
Summary: Twenty-year-old Tim Cratchit wanted to see more of the world and go on an adventure. He just didn't want to have to do it under such unfortunate circumstances.And a prince never realized how hard running away from royal duties could be.I'm loosely using some elements of an AU I had in an old story on an old account, namely "A Christmas Carol takes place in movieverse Wall and not London."
Relationships: Tim Cratchit/Original Character





	1. Prologue

After Ebenezer Scrooge's life-changing Christmas, he hadn't just upped Bob Cratchit's salary and helped get Tiny Tim medical care, he'd made Bob full partner in the lending firm. Tim's treatment worked well enough for him to be able to walk on his own.

Two years after that Christmas, in 1845, Scrooge died peacefully of old age. Bob then took over the business. His oldest son, Peter, _technically_ didn't have to join his father in taking over what had once been Scrooge and Marley's, (Peter already had a job elsewhere in town) but he did anyway.

And so it went for another decade: Cratchit and Cratchit took over the firm that has once been Scrooge and Marley's, which had been Fezziwig's before that.

One day in April 1855, Bob Cratchit unexpectedly died of a heart attack. And it began to tear the family apart more than Tim's death would have in the possible future shown to Scrooge in 1843.

While Mrs. Cratchit and most of the Cratchit children grieved as anyone would've expected, Peter started showing early signs of bitterness and greed that nearly corrupted Scrooge after his sister's death.

And Tim? He took his father's death hardest, as he'd been particularly close to Bob. He wouldn't eat; he wouldn't talk; he'd stopped showing up to his job in the town's bookstore; he'd even started to lose the faith in God that he'd held so long while unable to walk.

In May, Tim began growing tired of hearing the arguments between Peter and their mother about Peter's personality change. One night, Tim took a bag and filled it with as much clothes a he could and the small amount of money he'd stowed away under his bedroom floorboards instead of in the old lending firm. As soon as he felt sure his family was asleep, he crept downstairs to the kitchen for a small knife and a bit of food before sneaking out the door.

As Tim walked through the town of Wall, he thought, _Why now?_ before thinking, _Why not now?_

He had to cross the wall itself.

Everyone in Wall knew the story of what happened 21 years earlier, the year before Tim was born. The old man who guarded the Crack in the wall on the edge of town had been there for ages: before Tristan Thorn first tried to cross the wall through the crack in 1834 to find the fallen star Yvaine; even before Tristan's father Dunstan crossed the wall eighteen years before _that_ (leading to some... questions in town for several years about Tristan's heritage). The old man was seemingly ancient but still took his job extremely seriously.

If Tim could get somewhere further down the wall itself from the guard's position at the crack, he could try crossing the wall. Assuming that he could find somewhere that was open field like where the crack was, as opposed to thick forest.

And find a field Tim did. Climbing over the wall there seemed suspiciously easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably going to sound a bit like I'm rambling, but I'm taking a few liberties with the timeline of Stardust, as far as the actual years go.
> 
> Bookverse!Stardust had Dunstan's time crossing the wall sometime when Dickens was writing Oliver Twist, which would've been sometime between 1837 and 1839, making it so that the main action of the book takes place sometime between 1855 and 1857. I'm assuming that movieverse!Stardust, which I'm drawing the most inspiration from, takes place around the same time.
> 
> If I use that timeline, I'd create serious inconsistencies when assuming that the "present" in A Christmas Carol actually takes place in 1843, since I'm making Tim be 20 for this fic.
> 
> If my OC kid of Tristan and Yvaine is supposed to also be 20, I can't have him be 20 using the canon Stardust timeline, because that would set my story in at least the mid- to late-1870s... which is why, for the sake of this story, the main action of Stardust takes place in 1834 for Tim and my OC to both be born in 1835 and have this fic set in 1855.


	2. Across the Wall

On the other side of the wall was... another field surrounded by a forest. It almost felt like a mirror image of where Tim had crossed, but with a slightly more magical undertone.

Tim had heard of a fairy market just on the other side of the forest from the crack in the wall, but he knew that to even consider following the wall itself to the crack to use as a reference point for what little he knew of this side if the wall meant existing getting caught by the old guard.

 _Fuck it,_ Tim thought. _If I'm going to go on that adventure I dreamt of from all those years reading as a boy when my legs were too weak for me to do any adventuring of my own, I have to follow the wall to the crack and get my bearings for what part of the forest to cross._

Using the bright light of the full moon, Tim followed the wall to the crack. He crept towards it, praying the guard couldn't see him on the "wrong" side of the wall. And the guard didn't. He looked like he'd fallen asleep on the job for the first time in his career. (At least, Tim hoped the guard was asleep. The guard must've been over a hundred years old, even four decades earlier when Dunstan Thorn crossed to the market Tim wanted to find.)

Tim adjusted his bag on his back, took a breath, and darted across the field to the forest. He'd made it. He then slowed to a walk, trying to carefully pick his way through through the trees now that he'd lost some of the night's moonlight.

Then Tim heard a noise, turning to see someone crashing through the forest towards him. It was a young man about his age, being chased by two thuggish men.

The young man tripped, and the two thugs were nearly upon him. Without thinking, Tim took his knife from his pocket and launched himself into the first thug, trying to keep him from reaching the younger man. The young man picked himself up and joined the fight.

When the two thugs were down for the count, Tim and the other man moved a ways away.

"Thank you; you saved me," the man said. "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

"I should be asking you the same thing," replied Tim. "Just... call me Anzel. Just out of curiosity, is there a market of some sort around here?"

"Smart to use that name when you don't know anyone here. Hang on, you're from across the wall, aren't you?"

"I... Yeah, I am. Why?"

"My, uh, my dad... might've... grown up on the other side of the wall?" The young man shifted uneasily.

Tim asked, "Wait, is your dad Tristan Thorn? Everyone in Wall knows the story of how he crossed the wall, became a king, and married a fallen star twenty-one years ago. My dad was a couple years ahead of him in school."

"Guilty as charged," the other man said. "I'm Prince Alexander of Stormhold. Please, just call me Alex, though."

"I'm Tim Cratchit. I'm sorry for such an awkward introduction."

"No, that's my fault. I was the one running for my life. And from my responsibilities, I guess. I know that even though I'm the oldest, I might not necessarily be king in the future, given our royal succession rules here, but I got really bored doing the whole 'learn to rule a country just in case' thing. I probably shouldn't be showing you the market. People kinda know me there. Because of the whole prince thing."

"If you don't want to be seen by anyone you know, I get you not wanting to go to the market, and even not wanting to travel durning the day. Then again, could the stars see you travel at night? If they're all, what, your aunts and uncles? Does your mum have a way to keep in contact with her siblings down here?"

Alex thought a minute. "I don't know. I never thought about that. And I don't know if I have time to think about that. I slipped away from my bodyguards some time ago, when I first ran away, and I don't know how many more of those men are after me. I need to keep moving. And I guess so do you, now that you've accidentally gotten involved with my own escape?"

 _Some start to an adventure,_ Tim thought.


End file.
